Two of a Kind (30 page)

“Okay,” he said slowly, studying the fuchsia-colored bowling shirts. They were a new level of ugly.

“You can see why we want them,” Gladys said.

“Not really.”

Eddie ignored him. “Our names get embroidered on the front and the radio station logo goes on the back. That’s advertising for you, which is why you’ll want to pay for the shirts. Lots of people come to the bowling alley. They’ll see the call letters and want to listen.” She paused as if she thought he needed time for the concept to sink in.

He’d been in more dire situations before and understood the need to have a plan of action. However, none of his military training had prepared him to face two old ladies on a mission.

“I get a pretty decent audience share right now,” he said.

Gladys put her hand on her chest and actually seemed to go pale. “You’re telling us no?”

Eddie’s mouth quivered. “I have to sit down,” she said, then shook her head. “Oh, I am sitting. It’s just the trembling gets so bad.” She looked at Gideon, then lowered her voice. “It’s my condition.”

Gladys sat next to her and squeezed her hand. “Honey, you know it upsets you when you talk about it.”

Eddie nodded. “I know. It’s just I really thought with the new shirts and all we had a chance at winning. Just one last time before...” She swallowed. “You know.”

Death, he thought grimly. She meant death. He couldn’t shake the feeling he was being played, but he also wasn’t willing to take the chance.

“Fine,” he snapped. “I’ll buy the damn shirts. Order them and send me the bill.”

Eddie beamed. “Do you want to approve the design?”

“No,” he told her, then remembered who he was dealing with. “Yes. I want to see what you’re putting on the shirts before I pay for them.”

“No problem.”

Eddie stood with amazing agility for one so close to her final chapter. Gladys bounced up next to her.

“Thanks so much,” Gladys said, leading the way to the front door. “We appreciate it.”

They walked to the front door and let themselves out. Halfway down the driveway, they turned to each other and did a high five. Octogenarian hands slapped loudly in the quiet of the morning.

He’d been had. Suckered by two old ladies, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. As they drove away, he figured he’d gotten off easy. No doubt they would go perform their show in front of someone else to get another sucker to spring for new bowling balls.

He started to go inside, then saw a mail truck pulling into the driveway. A young woman with a ponytail got out.

“Mr. Boylan?”

“Yes.”

“I have a certified letter I need you to sign for.”

“Sure.”

He scrawled his name, then took the slim letter.

“Have a nice day,” she called as she got into her small truck.

He nodded.

The return address was from a medical lab outside Sacramento. There was only one reason he would be getting correspondence from a lab this way. Inside was the information on Carter.

He went into the house and stood by the front door. For a second he thought about not opening the envelope. He could cheerfully go a long time without knowing. Except he already knew. In his gut and maybe even his heart. There were plenty of clues and lots of physical evidence. The report would only confirm the information he already had.

Still, he tore off the end and pulled out the single sheet of paper. When he read the report, he went to the study and put it in a drawer. Then he walked away.

* * *

SATURDAY AFTERNOON FELICIA walked into the kitchen, not sure what she wanted to do for dinner. She had lots of ingredients but no real sense of how to put them together. Maybe she could go look on the internet.

But her search for inspiration stalled when she saw several dirty dishes sitting on the counter, along with an open package of bread and a jar of peanut butter. The knife was still sticking out of the jar and half the bread was spread over the counter. Two slices had fallen into the sink.

Gideon was out running errands, so she knew he hadn’t done this, which left only Carter. While he wasn’t perfect—most mornings he tossed his dirty clothes on the bed rather than putting them in the basket she’d provided—he was generally neat and considerate. He’d made his own lunch and snacks before, and he’d never left such a big mess.

A sense of unease washed over her. Something was going on, and she didn’t know what. Even more troubling, if someone had stopped and asked her how she knew there was a problem, she couldn’t begin to tell him or her.

She walked down the hall to Carter’s room. The door was half-open. She knocked as she entered.

Carter was sitting in front of his laptop, slouched in his chair. His feet were up on the desk, and he was playing a computer game with lots of shooting and what looked like purple-skinned space aliens.

“Carter,” she began.

“Give me a sec.”

He twisted in his seat as he fired several more times. His shooting style was inefficient, she noted. He wasted a lot of energy and had less than fifty percent accuracy. Not that she was going to give him tips right now.

“Carter,” she repeated. “I need to speak with you.”

He sighed heavily, paused the game and turned to face her. His feet hit the floor with a thunk.

“What?”

She hadn’t realized so much information could be contained in a single word. Not that any of it was good.

For a second she felt as if she’d intruded, that she should apologize and leave him alone. The sense of being uncomfortable, of not fitting in, nearly had her backing away. Then she remembered the kitchen.

“You made a peanut butter sandwich a little while ago.”

“So? I was hungry. Are you saying I shouldn’t eat? Do you want to starve me?”

Felicia processed the words twice and still found no linkage between her comments and his. “I’m saying you left a mess in the kitchen.”

“Oh. That.”

He turned back to his computer screen and picked up the controller.

“Carter.”

“What?”

He didn’t bother turning around.

Frustration joined confusion. “Carter, I’m speaking to you.”

“We’re the only two people in the room. I get that. Unless you want to have a meaningful conversation with the bed.” He chuckled.

“I have no reason to speak to the bed,” she began, only to realize he’d distracted her again. An excellent ploy, she thought with some respect. So this was what it meant to deal with a teenager. Carter had been so easygoing and polite that she’d assumed he wasn’t going to ever be difficult. A mistake on her part. Perhaps he’d just been settling in. Now he was more comfortable and could act like a regular thirteen-year-old.

“Please put down the controller and face me.”

There was another very heavy sigh, but he did as she requested. He raised both eyebrows. “What?”

“You left a mess in the kitchen.”

“Didn’t we already have this conversation?”

“We didn’t finish it. You need to go clean up everything.”

“Sure.” He turned back to the game.

“Now. You need to do it now.”

He spun back to her so quickly, she half expected to see him go flying off the chair.

“You don’t tell me what to do,” he yelled. “You’re not my mother.”

He stood and moved toward her. Nothing about the move was threatening, yet she sensed he meant it to be.

“I don’t have to do what you say,” he said, his voice still loud, his posture aggressive. “You’re not my
mother!
”

Felicia took a step back. Not because she was afraid, but because she felt as if he’d slapped her. She and Carter had gotten along from the first day. They hugged before he went to bed. They hung out together. She cared about him.

Had it all been an act? A way to gain her trust? If so, what was there to achieve from a pretense of affection?

“Repeating a fact we both already know won’t increase its significance,” she said quietly. “Our relationship has little bearing on how you conduct yourself in this house. We are a family unit, however loosely formed. Each of us has responsibilities for the greater good. There are rules and considerations. One of them is that you don’t leave a mess in the kitchen. You will clean it up now.”

He glared at her, his dark eyes bright with emotion. She wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but after a few seconds, he stalked past her. She heard his heavy footsteps in the kitchen, then the slam of cupboards and the refrigerator door.

She had no explanation for his harsh words, his attitude. Her chest was tight, and she suddenly knew she was only a few seconds from crying. Something she instinctively guessed she couldn’t let him see or know about.

She hurried down the hall. The master was on the other side of the house. She sank onto the bed and tried to steady her breathing. But it was too late to stop the tears. They filled her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. The pain in her heart overwhelmed her. She felt betrayed and hurt and so very small. As if she could no longer protect herself.

Even though she couldn’t say from what, she knew that Carter was somehow at the root of it all.

* * *

GIDEON KNEW SOMETHING was wrong the second he stepped into the house. There was a change in the energy. If he were on the other side of the world, he would be pulling his gun and bracing for an ambush. As it was, he could only move quietly and be prepared for whatever happened next.

He walked through the kitchen, but all seemed well there. A few crumbs on the counters, but nothing out of place. He paused, not sure which way to go next. He started toward Carter’s room, then changed his mind and went into the master.

Felicia sat on the bed. At first he didn’t understand her posture. The slumped shoulders were at odds with her usual upright, take-charge self. Then she looked up, and he saw tears in her eyes.

He found himself pulling her to her feet and holding her tight. She clung to him, her pain as raw and open as a wound.

He stroked her hair and her back. “What happened?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

“No,” she managed, her voice a choked sob. “I’m fine. Or I should be.” She sniffed and stepped back. “It’s Carter. We had a fight.”

She moved away. “That’s what it was. A fight. I’ve never had a fight with anyone before. It’s awful. How do people do it all the time? Why aren’t they crushed? He made a snack and left everything out. The bread, the peanut butter. He doesn’t do that, so I was confused. I went to see him to ask him to clean up what he’d done and he—”

She paused, her mouth trembling.

So far he didn’t see the issue, but she was upset and that made this his problem. “And?”

“He yelled at me. He said I wasn’t his mother and I couldn’t tell him what to do. The way he looked at me...” More tears fell. “I thought we were getting close. I thought he liked me.”

Gideon pulled her close again. “He
does
like you.”

“You didn’t see him. I’m trying to tell myself that he’s thirteen and there are hormones, or maybe he’s testing me to see if I’ll stand by him, no matter what. I hope it’s one of those, but I never thought it would hurt so much.”

He held her, knowing there was nothing he could say to make the situation easier. But he could try to understand it better.

“I’m going to talk to him.”

Felicia nodded. “I guess one of us should, and I don’t think I can right now.”

He was halfway down the hall when he saw the front door just out of the corner of his eye. It would be so easy to head out. Take off. Run up the mountain or get in his car and disappear. Leave all this emotional crap behind. Simple solution that wouldn’t solve the real problem. Because the letter he’d gotten two days ago said no matter how long he was gone or how much he avoided his responsibility, Carter was still his son.

He walked into his office and pulled the envelope out of his desk, then went down the hall. When he reached Carter’s room, he found the teen lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling.

“Go away,” he said as Gideon entered.

“No such luck, kid.”

Gideon pulled the desk chair next to the bed and sat down.

He’d been a teenager once, although trying to summon the memories was useless. During his captivity, he’d done his best to forget everyone and everything he’d ever known.

But now, as he stared at the boy who was his son, he had no way to connect. No funny stories about his past to share. He’d done a good job of forgetting, never thinking that if he survived, there might be a price to pay.

“You gonna be a shit much longer, or is this about over?” he asked, his voice conversational.

Carter sat up and stared at him. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know. Felicia’s the smartest one in the house, but neither of us is stupid. What’s your endgame? Does hurting someone who cares about you make you feel like a man?”

Carter flinched. “She’s upset?”

“She’s crying.”

The last vestige of defiance faded, leaving behind a frightened and ashamed boy. “I’m sorry.”